Does Lone Druid Need A Buff?

With the last major patch out before TI8, it seems that there will be less hope for Lone Druid, who almost gets the crown for the least picked hero in pubs, after Chen, and the hero with the lowest win rate. What has happened to plummet Lone Druid into irrelevancy?

Our meta stats suggests that pub players just don’t know how to use him. There’s a near 10% win rate differential between Crusader and Divine brackets. That’s usually the case with heroes that have a high skill floor to reach their potential. It’s why heroes like Spectre and Zeus can still succeed at the lowest brackets, and why Puck and Earth Spirit tend to do better among higher brackets.

But Lone Druid’s win rate difference outpaces all other heroes between high and low brackets. Compare him to Chen, a companion in the hard to use department and also the least picked hero, who only has a win rate differential of 4% between Crusader and Divine brackets. Chen could be inherently stronger in this patch, and a global heal is effective in anyone’s hands. And players who are picking him, willing to multitask multiple creeps and heroes, might be attuned to his skillset.

Lone Druid hasn’t had many changes significant changes since patch 7.07, where his talent rework essentially eliminated his ranged build. Spirit Bear got a few small buffs in 7.07 and 7.10, resulting in almost doubling his health regeneration from 2/3/4/5 to 5/6/7/8. It’s small recourse for the meta changes that have happened around Lone Druid.

Despite being excellent in the lane, Lone Druid doesn’t contribute much in a teamfight. Where his strength was mowing down towers—while also holding a late game ace to even backdoor them with the Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade—it’s now less essential in today’s meta.

Buildings got stronger. In patch 7.07, backdoor protection increased from 25% to 40% in 7.07, and all towers received armor buffs. Then patch 7.13 buffed Glyph from 5-6 seconds and reduced the bounties of all towers. Ranged and melee barracks got similar buffs—more health, less money rewarded.

There were other changes in the meta, such as the focus on bounty runes and Roshan as early and mid game objectives, that shifted the focus away from pushing and towards controlling the map. That’s not to mean that Lone Druid is completely unplayable, since he still has some use cases in the right lineup. He’s especially strong with a Helm of the Dominator, which can now allows him to use Battle Cry with a siege creep.

But he only works for a small percentage of Dota players and only in select cases. Valve’s two week patch cycle has been quick to target the strong and weak heroes of the meta, usually following the results of a Major. But as a consequence, pubs have suffered. This month, Lone Druid has a 1.26% pick rate and 37.6% win rate, yet he’s situational enough in pubs to fall under Valve’s patch radar. What else has to happen before he comes back?

Split pushing in general seems to be having a tough time right now, but what exactly do you think would bring change without directly rolling back the patches? I specifically ask the question because the end of the article seems to imply frustration, but it doesn't clarify your personal position on the matter. Do you like the changes to towers and glyphs, or are you seeing this as something that needs to be specifically addressed for Druid?

I don't think that's good idea, buff lone druid. Because he's already so strong, but people just do not know how playing them. I think also people forget about what game is it. That's ok when u must training u're micro. And this is the only thing you need to play ld and win.

I think the low pick-rate of Lone Druid is owed to the fact that not many players know when to pick Lone Druid / the appropriate situation to pick Lone Druid. It is not clear cut when someone should say: "Oh, this is the best Lone Druid game, I must pick him" Usually Lone Druid work against melee heroes and 1 v 1 lanes so that the bear can tank most of the harassment and also when the team requires a siege hero, however one should note that Lone Druid is not the only hero that can function under these conditions. There are other simpler heroes to play/understand that can work in a melee / 1 v 1 situation and also an abundance of heroes that can push towers.

Furthermore, Lone Druid is a hero that requires a team to play around it. The hero itself is a win condition. You take care of Lone Druid, Lone Druid takes care of the game. In pub games where everyone likes to pick cores that stay at the centre of the attention ie. Invoker, Anti-Mage etc. this hero is hard to work with if the teammates of Lone Druid cannot work with the other heroes.

LD was my main much before that horrible patch that created "ranged Sylla". The problem was the CD nerf of the Rabid . This was the nerf that basically killed Sylla. Before the nerf we can maintain Rabid active during the whole farming process and the Teamfights, now with the nerf your farm is worse and you have the manage the CD of the skill to not have the risk to fight without Rabid.

Lone Druid is a subpar hero. There's no denying it, even though it is my favourite hero, because even if the Bear is cute, and the chance to Entangle is exhilariting, you can't but admit it has one of the ♥♥♥♥♥iest Ultimates, and Alghanim's Upgrade in the game. It is so bad, that when my friend who is much better than me at the game, plays Alghanim's with Lone Druid, I might actually have a chance of winning him. So these are the changes I recommend:

First of, you gain a tremendous HP boost, but with no HP regen to complement it, which makes this worse than just getting Strength Stat boost. So it needs a HP regen boost, when in True Form. Next, for an Ultimate, it gets very little, considering other Heroes with the ability to toggle between melee and ranged forms, like the Troll Warlord, and then again, the Troll Warlord doesn't suffer from a transformation duration. So I suggest each level up of True Form grants you an increase in Base Attack Speed, at 1.5/1.4/1.3, similar to and complementing the Spirit Bear's own increase in Base Attack Speed. This makes the Hero less dependent on the Spirit Bear, when it dies for instance, and the handicap isn't as severe. It also boosts and creates more incentive to play in melee form.

Now we come to Alghanim's. It should keep what it does now, but it should also see a return of One, which now works this way: 40%/50%/60%, absorbing of damage by Spirit Bear, with each level of increase in True Form, for a duration of 60 seconds. Also, Battle Cry gains +30 Damage and +5 Armour at all levels. I understand too there is a problem with having One work with Alghanim's effect right now, for it can tank a lot of damage with the Hero at the Fountain, while the Spirit Bear goes off to attack. If that is the case, we should remove the current effect, and reinstate One, this way making the Hero more fun to play as well, with more options for interaction.

This also means that Lone Druid is now a 3 Carry, 3 Durable, and 1 Escape.

Also, I like the idea of having Spirit Bear with stats. Basically, you level up your Hero, and your Spirit Bear gain Attack damage of +5. So over a period of 25 Levels, you should get about +125 Damage. Which is pretty reasonable.

Support from Plus members keep Dotabuff running and help enable us to deliver new features for everyone. As a reward, some features that are difficult or expensive to operate are available only to Plus members. Additionally, Plus members never see any advertisements!